Desperate Times
by nedcans
Summary: Lukas Bondevik, the passive-aggressive Norwegian immigrant, is paired with Mathias Kohler, the loud and obnoxious Danish exchange student for a massive English project. All the cliche high school stories would say that these two are a match made in heaven, bound to fall in love despite their differences, but, Lukas couldn't care less. He just wants to pass English.


Lukas threw his bag to the floor as soon as he got home. He was angry, and not in the passive-aggressive, sardonic way he normally was angry. No, he was angry in the blood-boiling, 'if you look at me strange, I'll snap your neck' kind of way. People who knew Lukas knew he wasn't a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but he was rarely _this_ angry. He had caused his younger brother to run off in fear, clutching his stuffed puffin toy, and their dog followed him not long after. After standing, scowling in the living room for a while, Lukas decided to go to his room to stew in his anger.

The reason Lukas was so angry was that he had a project to do in English. He didn't have any issues with the language, and he hadn't since he had first moved to America when he was 5. His anger lied in the fact that it was a _group project._ And, as if that wasn't bad enough, his teacher had paired him up with the one person in the entire school that could make Lukas as angry as he was now. The foreign-exchange student from Denmark, Mathias Kᴓhler.

When Mathias first came to his school, Lukas was actually a little excited. He wouldn't admit it to anyone. The thought of knowing not just another European, but another Scandinavian made Lukas secretly ecstatic. The only likeminded company he had was his dad, who never seemed to be home since his mom left. Emil was born in America, and was too young to hold decent conversation with anyways. Mathias was supposed to be the perfect best friend Lukas had always hoped for, but, of course, Lukas had to hate him.

Lukas felt like he had good reason for hating Mathias. He was loud, and obnoxious, and a bit of a bully. He had tormented Lukas almost incessantly since they started their English Literature class together, starting as soon as he found out Lukas was Norwegian. Mathias would never shut his mouth about Denmark being superior to Norway, even when Lukas punched him in the face that one time and almost broke his nose. The Dane was just too stupid to quit.

That was another reason Lukas was dreading this project. Mathias didn't make a secret of his low grade in the class (last Lukas had heard, Mathias had a 6%. _Six percent._) and Lukas was sure he would end up doing 99.9% of this massive project. Even if Mathias pitched in, he'd probably just mess it up by being utterly stupid, and Lukas would have to fix it anyways. The whole situation was a trainwreck, basically. There weren't any silver linings to it, Lukas was fucked.

Lukas sighed and went into his room. He had a lot of work to do on this project, which was due in 2 months, and he would probably need those two months in their entirety if he was going to finish it without Mathias's help. He decided he'd start on it after a quick nap, and that hopefully he'd be a little less angry when he woke up. He flopped onto his bed, and pulled his blanket over him. Yeah, this was a good idea, he decided as he started to doze, feeling his anger starting to fade away.

Not even five minutes after having fallen asleep, Lukas awoke to the sound of his phone buzzing on his nightstand, and his anger welled right back up. Who the hell was texting him? It wasn't like he had all that many friends. If it was his dad, he'd definitely give him a piece of his mind, texting him during his nap time. Lukas grabbed his phone, and his scowl turned into a legitimate look of disgust when he saw the text that was illuminating his screen.

_Hi! It's Mathias, remember, you gave me your number today so we could start that project? Anyways, I'm thinking now's a good a time as ever to start. We should meet up and start it, want to come to my house?_

No, Lukas thought, he most definitely did not want to go to Mathias's house. He knew for a fact that his host family was Mr. Jones, the US History teacher, who was almost as loud and obnoxious as Mathias himself, and his partner, Mr. Braginsky, the Healthcare Science teacher, who was actually kind of terrifying. That wasn't the kind of environment Lukas wanted to be in. There was also the fact that Lukas didn't want to be anywhere near Mathias himself, but, that was a given. Lukas wanted to go back to sleep and forget that today ever happened. But Mathias didn't seem to want to let Lukas do that, and kept sending more texts. _Hellooo, Norge? Lukas? Mr. Bondevik? You there? We need to get to work!_ Several more texts of that vain came, and Lukas finally groaned and hit reply.

_Sorry, babysitting little brother. Can't leave the house._

It wasn't an exact lie. Emil was 9, way too young to be home alone, even though Lukas had left him alone countless times before. But, he felt like being a good big brother today. Maybe he'd make dinner for his brother and himself. Maybe he'd sit and watch a movie with him. Maybe he'd do anything that involved not going to Mathias's house. He didn't quite know yet.

_I can come over to your house, then!_ was Mathias's reply. Ugh, no. He'd get Danish germs all over the place, and teach Emil bad habits, and probably kick their dog. Lukas was not risking any of that. _My dad is out for the week, and doesn't really want people over._ Okay, Dad had been out for two months, and showed no signs of returning soon, and he probably didn't give two shits about whether Lukas brought people over, but he didn't want to risk that either.

_Oh, come on. He won't find out, and this is seriously for a school project. You Norwegians are so uptight!_ Despite Mathias's charm, Lukas wasn't convinced. Mathias wasn't coming to this house. They'd work on the project at the library or something, they wouldn't do anything at either of each other's house. There was a lot more intimacy at a house, and Lukas wanted nothing even resembling intimacy with Mathias. He had hit reply to tell this to Mathias, and maybe call him out for being stereotypical of Norwegians, but a yell from downstairs distracted him.

"Lukas! Someone's at the door!" It was Emil. Lukas groaned, throwing his phone on the bed. "Don't open it, Emil, wait for me." He'd deal with Mathias later, after he got rid of whoever was at the door. Probably a religious person, and Lukas would have to explain to them that his family was atheist, yes, his whole family, because they were born in Norway, which is an atheistic country, no, you can't come inside to read the Bible… (A lot of them came to his house, for some reason. Enough for him to have his speech memorized.) Lukas walked down the stairs, rolling his eyes when he saw Emil trying to jump up to the peephole that let you see who was outside.

"You're never going to be big enough to reach that peephole, pipsqueak," Lukas teased, and Emil pouted. "Will too!" he countered, and Lukas smirked a bit. "Come here, I'll let you see who's out there." He motioned for Emil to come over, and Emil did. He picked the young boy up, and put him on his shoulders, allowing him to see who was at the door. "I don't know who it is, Lukas. He doesn't look like those religious ladies." Emil said down to Lukas, and this confused Lukas. "Well what does he look like?" Lukas asked, and suddenly, whoever was outside started knocking near frantically at the door. This worried Lukas slightly. What if it was someone that was hurt, or someone that wanted to hurt them? "Get down, Emil, let me see who it is." Lukas said, his face returning to its regular stoic state. "No! I want to see who it is!" Emil protested. Lukas was about to put him down, but stopped when the person outside started yelling to them.

"Hey, I know you're home, Norge!" Fuck, Lukas cursed to himself. He knew that voice, and he knew there was only one person in the entire world that called him Norge. "Emil, what does the man outside look like?" Lukas asked again, and Emil peered back outside the peephole. "Well, he's got blond, spiky hair, and he's really tall, and he's wearing a stupid tiny hat-" Lukas cut his brother off with a sigh, and put him down, even though Emil didn't like that. He took a look for himself out the peephole, and his suspicions were confirmed. Mathias was outside.

Lukas gestured for Emil to go sit in the kitchen. Once the younger was safely out of earshot, Lukas opened the door to find a grinning Mathias on his front porch. "Heya, Norge!" The Dane was beaming at him, despite the scowl on Lukas's face. "First of all, don't call me Norge, Dane. Second of all, how the fuck do you know where I live?" Lukas sounded accusatory, but that didn't deter the persistent, toothy smile that Mathias was sporting. "Alfred gave it to me! He lives just down the road. He told me he wanted me to pass English and made me come down here."

Lukas shut the door in Mathias's face.

"Hey!" The Dane yelled, and started banging on the door. Lukas ignored it, and walked into the kitchen and sat down next to his brother. "Who was that?" Emil asked. "My partner for a group project." Lukas said, still ignoring Mathias's banging. "Aren't you going to let him in so you can work?" Emil sounded a bit confused at why Mathias couldn't come in, since Lukas always did his work. "No, Emil." "Oh. He sounds like you." Emil said offhandedly, getting up from the table and going to get food. "What? No he doesn't! He's Danish. I'm Norwegian. We sound nothing alike." Lukas barked, and Emil shrugged. "Whatever you say, Lukas."

Now thoroughly agitated, Lukas got up from the table, and took the pan Emil had out of his hands. "You can't cook, Emil. You'll burn the house down." He turned on the oven and put the pan on it. Truth of the matter was, Emil could probably cook better than Lukas, but this was a passive-aggressive form of revenge against his brother for saying that he sounded like a Dane. Lukas threw some oil into the pan, and got some fish out of the fridge to fry. Emil stared at Lukas, then back to the living room, where the sound of Mathias still pounding on the door could be heard. "Suit yourself. I'm going to go watch TV." Lukas gave a noise of approval, and went back to concentrating on frying the fish.

Suddenly, the loud banging stopped, and Lukas let out a sigh of relief. It was a lot easier to cook when your house didn't sound like one of those haunted ones from a B-Horror movie. Mathias had seemed to have taken the hint that he wasn't getting inside, and left. He thought the Dane would be too stupid to quit, but the fact that he was able to recognize when to stop made Lukas a little less wary of working with him. Maybe he wasn't as bad as he had thought? Lukas shrugged to himself, and flipped the fish that was frying. It would be done soon, and hopefully he wouldn't burn it this time. It was always embarrassing when your 9 year old brother could cook better than you.

The fish fried without incident, though, and Lukas piled the pieces of it onto a plate and set the table for him and his brother to eat. "Emil! Come eat!" he called into the living room, but Emil didn't respond. Frowning slightly, he called again, and once again, got no response. Now starting to get frustrated, he put down his plate of fish and walked into the living room, only to see Emil sitting on the couch with Mathias, watching cartoons.

"Emil, what did I tell you about opening the door when I'm not around?" Lukas's expression was as stoic as ever, but Emil had been alive long enough to hear the anger under the words. The young boy's eyes widened a bit, and he quickly jumped off the couch. "Well, see you around Mathias, I'm gonna go have dinner!" he exclaimed, and ran into the kitchen to avoid the wrath that was sure to come.

Mathias grinned at Lukas, who was glaring intensely at him. "You can't really get mad at me, your brother let me in-" he started, but Lukas cut him off. "No, you used my 9 year old brother to get into my house after I had told you, quite clearly, that you weren't welcome here. I can get mad at you, and I am." Lukas's voice dripped with anger. He _really_ didn't like Mathias. "You didn't clearly say anything, you just closed the door on me! How was I supposed to know that meant you wanted me to leave?" Mathias was playing dumb, and it just made Lukas mad.

"Anyone with sense would know that closing a door in someone's face is an indicator that the person at the door should leave." Lukas said, wanting nothing more than the Dane sitting on his couch with his feet propped up on the table to be gone. "Look, Norge, at this point, you should know I don't have much sense." Did Mathias just wink at him? Disgusting. "Get out of my house. And don't call me Norge!" Lukas protested. "Oh, come on! We've got a project to do and you know it's going to take forever, so we might as well start it now." Mathias didn't seem to want to leave, at all.

"Fine. If it gets you out of my house sooner." Lukas said sharply, and turned to head back to the kitchen. He was going to eat his dinner, and have a word with his brother about opening the door for strangers, or, more specifically, opening the door for Danes. He went into the kitchen and got a plate of his fried fish, before noticing that Mathias was in the doorway of the kitchen. He sighed angrily, and looked to him.

"What do you want, Dane?" Lukas asked. He had expected Mathias to have stayed in the living room, but Lukas was starting to realize that Mathias wasn't the kind of person who acted the way he was expected to. "Well, it's been a while since I've had any Scandinavian cooking…" Mathias trailed off, his voice sounding expectant. It took Lukas a moment before he realized what he was implying. "You aren't getting any food." Lukas sneered. Mathias laughed, and walked into the kitchen.

"You know, you Norwegians don't scare me." Mathias sat at the table, and grabbed a piece of fish. "I'm from Iceland!" Emil chipped in, and Mathias smirked. "Even better, bud. Can you tell me where your plates are?" he asked, and Lukas glared. "You're from America, Emil. Mom is from Iceland, not you." Lukas went ignored, and Emil pointed to the cabinet by the sink. "Traitor," Lukas rolled his eyes, and Mathias got up to grab a plate. Great, he was staying for dinner.

Lukas ended up not even eating the meal he worked hard to cook. There wasn't enough for everyone to have a serving, so Lukas gave his up to Mathias (though he complained the entire meal about it.) "This isn't actually half bad, Norge." Mathias said, after finishing his meal obscenely fast. "This is the third time in one hour I've had to ask you to stop calling me Norge, Dane." Lukas said. "You've been calling me Dane and I haven't got offended." Mathias said proudly. "It's not my fault your tiny brain can't comprehend why it's offensive to boil one down to their nationality like you're doing." Lukas snapped, and Mathias put his hands up as if to surrender. "If it really bothers you so bad I'll stop." It seems like Lukas had gotten through to him. "Thank you." "No problem… Norge."

That was it. They hadn't started the project yet, but Lukas was done. He stood up, grabbed the Dane by his collar, and pulled him up as well. He pulled him to the door, and opened it. "Leave." "But, we haven't started our-" Mathias tried, but Lukas cut him off. "I'll do it by myself. I don't care. Leave." Lukas demanded, but Mathias gave him a pout. "Come on, give me one more chance. I promise I'll behave. We'll go start the project right away and I'll be a good boy." Lukas almost brought up that Mathias was talking about himself like a dog, but didn't. He sighed, and shut the door. "You can stay, but only because Emil likes you."

Mathias threw a fist in the air in victory. "Hell yeah! Let's go get started!" he cheered, and Lukas started to wonder if he had made the best decision. "Stay right here and I'll go get the materials." Lukas said, and Mathias nodded and plopped back on the couch. He heard Emil rummaging to throw away his food and running into the living room, presumably so he could continue watching cartoons with Mathias. Lukas made his way upstairs to grab what they needed, but stole a look behind him, at the pair on the couch watching Adventure Time, realizing it was almost certain that he didn't make the best decision, but there was no going back now. He'd likely fail the class if he failed this project, and desperate times called for desperate measures.


End file.
